If you're still trying to wrap your head around the Final Four of VCU, Butler, Kentucky and Connecticut, get in line.
This is like the street-corner sax player collecting a Grammy nomination. It's not that the dude can't play. He can, enough to make...

They started calling him "Johnny Football" as a kid because, when things didn't go his way on the playground, he took his ball and went home.
Now hit me with a rim shot and a "piling on" penalty.
Unlike the paid psycho-babble experts on ESPN, I...

My prognosticator side detests this Final Four. VCU and Butler exited early on my bracket, Kentucky and Connecticut in the regional semifinals.
Ditto for 2006 when George Mason intruded. I had the Patriots losing to Michigan State in the first round....

The future of the National Football League will be on display this week as the NFL Combine kicks off Tuesday in Indianapolis.
What used to take place in front of a handful of scouts, general managers and other team executives has now morphed into a...

There is a lesson to be learned following reports several conferences are exploring the option of restoring freshman ineligibility, barring first-year athletes from playing.
And you don't have to have a college degree to see what it is.
It all began when the Big Ten pushed the debate to the forefront by confirming to ESPN that league officials were considering the making freshman ineligible in football and men's basketball.
Freshman have been eligible to play in all NCAA sports since 1972, but...

LEXINGTON, Ky. — No, Auburn coach Bruce Pearl did not pull a "Hoosiers" and have his players measure the baskets at their Saturday morning shootaround at Rupp Arena.
Facing undefeated and top-ranked Kentucky as a 25-point underdog, Pearl employed a different tactic.
You can win every Southeastern Conference game you play, he told his Tigers. Except Kentucky on the road.
He qualified that reality check slightly, adding: "To beat Kentucky would take an extraordinarily super-human effort."...

Before adoring fans called him "The Moose" or "Joe College" or "Frank the Tank," Frank Kaminsky was known simply as "Frankie" or "Little Frank."
All year round, Little Frank would tag along with his 6-foot-10 dad to gyms around Chicago to watch "Big Frank" — a future version of himself — play rec-league games.
"That's part of why Frank is so skilled," says Gene Heidkamp, who coached Kaminsky at Benet Academy before he went on to stardom at Wisconsin. "His father was more of a face-up...

Two years ago, when asked about their interest in free agency, GM Rob Hennigan said the Magic would be swimming in the "kiddie pool."
After wading out without water wings to sign Channing Frye last offseason, is this the summer they snorkel in the deep end?
The Magic's biggest need: A great perimeter player who can score at will. Yeah, many teams need that guy.
LeBron James can become a free agent, but he's already left Cleveland once.
Here's what might be in sight for the Magic: The pool of power...

The postseason is one "Kokomo Bowl" from becoming the next verse in a Beach Boys song: "Miami, Bahamas, come on pretty mamma, Camellia, and Boca, this is not a joke-a." Four new bowl games plus the extra championship game means the process of picking winners has become a title of a movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock: "The 39 Steps." Or is it "Psycho"? I had a good picking year in 2013 because no one mailed me torn-up betting slips from Las Vegas, but this year could be as different as Mike Riley and Bo...

Only the very best teams in college basketball have advanced to the NCAA tournament's round of 16.
Take Dayton versus Stanford in the South Regional … please.
Dayton finished fifth in the Atlantic 10 Conference and absorbed a 26-point loss this season at St. Joseph's. Stanford tuned up for the NCAA tournament with an invigorating 25-point loss to UCLA.
UCLA is not one to talk, though, losing its last Pac-12 Conference regular-season game, by 18, at doormat Washington State.
Virginia, seeded...